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 Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 5:40 am
"Unfortunately, some are. I'll just have some regular waffles with butter and maple syrup, thank you." Nye took another sip at his tea as Muriel gave him a funny look and walked away to demand their orders from the cook and probably go light one up outside.
He took her question into very careful consideration, since really, he didn't know why he did it either. It took him a few very careful minutes of thought before he came up with a reasonable answer. After setting his mug down all important-like, he began with a sigh. "Well, I'm always doing stuff on a whim because I get bored with doing the same thing over and over again, but with things like being a hairdresser, I get all sorts of different people who want different things and look different from each other, with their different stories and personalities. I do things on a whim, and one day I just kinda... got a brochure for a class in the mail and decided to take it." Nye interrupted himself with a sip of tea before adding another comment for the sake of obvious humor. "But there's also the Hemmingway family dynasty of hairdressers!"
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 7:46 am
Ivie had pulled her legs up onto her chair by this point and was toying with her hot chocolate mug. The chocolate was beginning to set around the rim, and she continued to rotate the cup in her hands to sip from each side to remove it. It was a habit - like the one she had that involved pulling biscuits apart and eating the cream inside before dunking the rest in her drink - and she did it without realising.
Peering over the top of her mug, she watched Nye has he rambled on about his job. He made some valid points, she guessed, yet the thought of cutting hair all day and listening to people like Melissa talk about their lives seemed...a little dull to her.
Then again, she changed IVs and bedpans. She couldn't talk.
"A dynasty, eh? Well that's not something most families can boast of!" She wasn't entirely sure if he was kidding or not, but what the hey. She'd play along. "You get bored quickly?"
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 9:34 am
Nye watched her with an odd cat-like curiosity as she went on about stirring her cocoa and the like, but continued blabbering on about his job and his life and the whatnots. "Not people my age can boast about having parents in London, Belgium for the holidays, and a grandmother in Singapore while the other grandmother plays golf in Florida. That's a rare skill only I seem to have around here."
He tried to make it as obvious as possible that he was kidding about the dynasty thing. After all, his mom was a lawyer and his dad was a multi-lingual businessman invested in produce marketing, so it didn't really matter where either of them lived. Nye made his living doing two jobs, and was pretty damn well off on his own.
As for his boredom? Well. "Yeah. It's one of my less charming personality traits, aside from the dashing smile and witty comments. I need lots of change in consecutive order, or I get bored and cranky and become the cookie monster."
Muriel seemed to come in at the cookie monster bit specifically and gave Nye a weird sideways glance, trying to pretend that she didn't hear what he just said. She scoot his plate towards him and laid Ivie's in front of her in an almost pity-like manner before scuffling away. Nye grinned like a kid who just stole a cookie from the cookie jar. "But enough about me, really. What's behind that pretty face there, Miss Ivie."
The only reason he would bother emphasizing the miss was to get back at her for calling him Mr. Hemmingway.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 7:37 pm
Well Nye certainly didn't seem to have any issues when it came to talking about himself. This was good; If you hadn't guessed already, Ivie was a pretty damn good listener (read: Practice on Melissa at work), so she knew exactly when to smile, nod, laugh or reply. It was quite easy, really, and most people didn't even notice you were doing it. Ah, there was a chuckle moment.
She chuckled a little, taking a sip of her cooling cocoa. "I'm not sure that really counts as a skill, more as very, very handy." She replied neatly with a smile. "I do imagine it makes staying in those places much cheaper and convenient for you though." Reservations about traveling? For Ivie, right now, it was the cash...and the time.
"I'm sure being spontaneous can't be that terrible, if you enjoy it." She began diplomatically, before Nye brought out the cookie monster line. With that she just began laughing. Hard. The thought of Nye going through a Hulk-esque transformation only to come out blue, fluffy and about to eat the moon was just hilarious. Her hand covered her mouth as she nodded her thanks for Murial, still stifling her giggles. "Oh, you don't want to hear about me, Mr Hemmingway." It was obvious Nye didn't know her last name, and Ivie didn't feel like telling him until he asked.
"There isn't much more than you've seen, anyway. I work crazy hours, I study and I sleep. I also drink a lot of coffee in the Uni year." And that was her in two sentences. In her opinion, there wasn't much more to say.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 8:48 pm
Nye was determined to turn the conversation in her direction, and used his delicate manner of cutting off a piece of his waffle as an excuse to stop and think of questions. "There you go again with the titles. I think it's only fair for me to know your last name at this point so I can return the favor, don't you think?" The whole Mr. Hemmingway deal was... a slight bother to him, mainly because it made him feel older. And it brought back memories of the hospital and Olga, with the way she pronounced it 'Meester Hemmingvayh' and the creepy glint she got in his eyes when Nye needed another injection. It made goosebumps rise on his back.
After the third cut of his waffle, Nye took his time in chewing and tapping the fork against his lips in thought. The idea bulb seemed to light up with intense ferocity over his head as he perked up and reached for his mug of tea again. "Well, those crazy hours have to serve for at least a few interesting stories. Any other patients yell at you for opening the blinds?"
Nye was smiling as he brought the mug to his lips and took another sip of the bitter beverage. He was insanely curious about this girl, and it would take a lot to satisfy that curiosity. Subconsciously, he checked his watch. It was like Ivie's biscuit thing, he didn't even know he was doing it.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 8:57 pm
Ivie had been busy cutting her own waffle up into neat squares - following the imprint the waffle machine had left on the pastry - while she'd spoken, and she'd just popped a square into her mouth. Eyes narrowing slightly in thought, she chewed the sugary morsel precisely twenty times before swallowing it and skewering another on two prongs of her fork.
Well how about that. He'd asked. "Callaghan. Ivie replied after polishing off the second square. "Ivie Callaghan. It's a little less exciting than Hemingway, I'm sure."
She'd felt a little mean letting Olga do all Nye's shots during his stay, while we were on the topic, yet it was his own fault really. Besides, it wasn't as if it would make much difference who saw his butt. Olga just needed some spice in her life, working full time graveyard shifts at the hospital and all.
"Yelling's the least of my problems at work, actually." She continued with a wry grin. "I had an old coot lob his dinner at me the day before I started my holiday. I think you can still see the bruise here." She lent over a little, pointing to the side of her face the plate had grazed when it flew by, spilling mashed potato and peas everywhere. "And I didn't even say anything to him! He apologised once we got him back on his meds though, so really no harm done. Schitzo, you know."
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 9:10 pm
"Callaghan, eh? Well then, Miss Callaghan, I'll be glad to inform you that my name was actually supposed to be Nigel Schwarz, by suggestion of my Floridian grandmother, but my parents got bored with their last name and changed it to Hemmingway after some actor or another, and since Gram persisted to have some sort of color in my name, they called me Nye, which means golden in Welsh. So, actually it is a little less exciting."
Hah. That's what she gets for making fun of his name. He had a history behind it, at least, rooted with his parents boredom and genetic spontaneity. He did switch his glance from her eyes to the bruise on her neck and gave a sympathetic wince in her direction. "Reminds me of the time I got nailed in the nose with an aluminum baseball bat. Still, clumsy friends are better than Schitzos, I believe. Does it hurt any?"
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 9:19 pm
"Hemingway was a novelist, silly." Ivie began before stopping short. Wait..."Nigel? They were going to call you Nigel? You poor thing, you're lucky they didn't! Then again, I can't talk...Dad wanted to call me Petunia until Grandpa pointed out that it'd make me a dowdy old woman for life. It's always been Callaghan, Mr Hemingway." Now it was obvious she was doing it just to tease him.
"And no, it doesn't hurt. The nasty looking ones always hurt the least, I've found. Your nose doesn't look like it was broken, though...did someone pop it straight back for you?" For most people this might be some strange, strange dinner conversation, but it for Ivie it was relatively normal. She dined with medical students half the time, after all.
"Oh, did you want to try some of the chocolate ones?" The question was practically an afterthought, and she pushed her plate a little in Nye's direction.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 9:56 pm
"If they called me Nigel, I bet I wouldn't be wearing contact lenses right now." Nye took another piece of waffle to his mouth and chewed for a while before swallowing and washing it down with tea. He was never one for sweets, and the maple syrup here was overdoing it. He had to conserve his tea, dammit!
As for Petunia? That was almost as bad as Nigel! "Petunia Callaghan, eh? Has a nice ring to it, but I like Ivie better, personally." Nye couldn't help but muse for a moment and picture himself with cropped hair, side-parted and slicked down to perfection, huge, round glasses, pants pulled much too high up and a polo tucked in. And Ivie with too-frizzy hair and a long skirt in unfashionably faded flower print... He suddenly felt like he was sinning.
Upon being offered a taste of Ivie's waffle, he scoot his own plate over to her as well. "It was popped back in place almost immediately, since mother dear was around, and she had taken a few medical courses on a whim. Do you have any doctors in your family, or are you the first?" He picked up a small chocolatey square and stuck it in his mouth with a surprising lack or reluctance. He chewed, and reached for his tea before even swallowing. A little too sweet for his tastes. He preferred dark chocolate, but that didn't always taste good with a waffle.
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Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:05 am
"It was my great grandmother's name and she was dowdy." Ivie gave a theatrical shudder. "Those frumpy old lady skirts and cardigans. I don't want to be doomed to that!"
"Glasses aren't all bad though...I mean, I have reading ones in here somewhere." She pulled her purse onto her lap and dug through it for a minute or two, before pulling a rectangular set of green reading glasses out, sliding them onto her nose and twisting her head this way and the other. "Well, I think they look alright anyway. Better than the coke-bottle kind at any rate!" And they gave her a headache if she used them for anything other than reading. She tugged them off, clapping their case closed and letting her handbag slide to the floor again.
"Well, my grandpa was a large-animal vet in his day, but that's not quite the same unless you're dealing with children." Ivie joked, stabbing three different waffle squares up and popping them in her mouth. "Dad's in bussiness and Mum's his secretary. Cliche romance, all that stuff."
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Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:17 am
Nye's face paled comically. He wasn't about to admit that he even imagined her, no matter how briefly, in old-lady skirts and lame cardigans. He stabbed at his maple syrup waffle and drowned out the sudden dryness in his throat with tea, of which he was running dangerously low on. "Not as bad as waist-high pants and tucked in polos."
At the mention of his glasses Nye pulled his coat over on his lap and dug around the pockets. After some meticulous searching, he pulled out a bottle of hand sanitizer and the case for his contacts. Once he was sure his hands were thoroughly cleansed and dried (but lemon scented still!), he took out his contacts with a very careful, but experienced mannerism that was mildly like the way he cut hair. Nye closed his contact case tightly, and then proceeded to dig around his coat pockets some more.
At last, he pulled out two glasses cases, one slightly larger than the other. Being Nye, he opened the larger first and donned a pair of coke-bottle glasses. "Are you dissing my glasses?"
Nye scoot his glasses farther up his nose with his middle and pointer fingers, more out of weird habit than anything else, and folded his arms neatly on the edge of the table. "That sounds really fun, actually. Having your parents working in the same office, and all. My parents... met at a whale-lovers convention in Shanghai."
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Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:29 am
Thankfully, Ivie was blissfully unaware of Nye's ever so kinky mental image. Old lady fetish there? Ewww. "I don't think you quite understand me." She continued, swallowing. "She was wearing that sort of thing when she was my age."
Ultimate fashion crime, even for those days.
While Nye dug around in his jacket for something, Ivie finished up her waffle and pushed the plate away, her cutlery neatly placed together in the center. Her chocolate went next, sculled as time had cooled it, and strangely unsweet in comparison to the waffles.
As she lowered her mug back down to the table, Ivie's hot chocolate almost left her mouth in a surprised splatter at Nye's transformation. One hand against her chest she managed to swallow twice, spluttering afterwards. The laughter came after, puntuated with coughs every so often.
"My gods, Nye, you wouldn't need a disguise. You could just slip those on and no-one would know!" It was true. The pretty-boy's face was half hidden by the thick, ugly frames and glasswork.
A few coughs later and she appeared to have recovered. "You know, after what you've told me about your family I'm really not surprised that they did. I don't imagine it's so fun for my parents when Mum's cross at something though...you wouldn't be able to get away from each other at all."
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Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:38 am
Nye gave her a lame flick of the wrist and a supportive nod. "Of course, darling, of course. Like those silly crocs and plaids and stripes, but worse. Am I right? Of course I'm right."
Never mind being slightly amused by her laughing, Nye continued beaming his ultra!charm smile at her as he took his glasses off and tucked them neatly into a piece of cloth inside his case before shutting it with a click. "That's actually their main purpose, to be slipped on when I'm trying to get away from someone. These, though," he said as he opened the second case, "are what Zack likes to call my lady-killer glasses, but their purpose is only served when I misplace my contact lenses." With that, he unwrapped a pair of thick-prescription square glasses with rounded edges, much akin to Ivie's reading ones. Thin, expert framework and clean glass, all on top of Nye's face, it all just sort of worked and added sexy points.
He looked hot and intelligent. Come on now.
"Ah, my parents hated each other with a deep fiery passion. They never told me how they got together, but they're stuck like rubber and glue now. Even my story has a bit of a cliche in it, I suppose."
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Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:56 am
"You should ask them." Ivie decided, twirling her mug around on the table. "Too late once they're gone, after all. Unless you feel like hearing the garbled version once they hit seventy. You can never tell if they're making it up after that."
After this pearl of wisdom, Ivie reached over and snagged the tip of Nye's glasses between two fingers. They looked delicate - Ivie's mother was always breaking her glasses because of their thin frames - so her hold was excessively gentle as she pulled them up, then put them back down on Nye's nose a few times.
"You should wear them more often. These ones, I mean." She decided, plonking back into her chair with a smile. "Gives you the sexy academic look, or something like that. Melissa goes on about it with the interns all the time."
"How long have we got, by the way?"
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Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 2:10 am
"I can never tell if they're making it up or not anyways. If you think I'm weird, my parents are just... whoo."
As Ivie examined the delicate framework of his 'lady-killer' glasses, Nye took the time to look at her delicate hands. He was curious as to how such a woman was able to do all of that tough nursing work and be a part-time student as well while still staying so pretty all the time. And that was aside from saying he enjoyed her company. "Perhaps I ought to pop by the hospital and see if she points me out as a prime example?"
Nye went through the lengthy procedure of putting his glasses away and popping his contacts in without any hurry in his movements, checking his wristwatch along the way. "We've still got about 10 minutes before we gotta claim some nice spots to watch the parade."
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